- DivX Ultra 6, Mpeg 4 video
- HDMI, 1080i Upsampling
- USB Connect, plays flash drive files
- Ultra Slim Design. Compatible with both NTSC and PAL.
- Composite and component inputs cables supplied are only for composite no optical out just digital coax
The good:
Plays all discs VCDs, CD-RWs, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Div-X and just about anything that won't play on other DVD players.
It even has a USB connection in the front which you can use to directly plug in a zip drive or another device like a hard drive, although I have not used this feature yet.
The bad:
Remote is not at all user friendly. It is of cheap construction and buttons are not intuitive. I liked my Sony remote much better. Worse, the DVD player is VERY slow to respond to your pressing remote buttons. At times, I have to struggle to get it to respond.
While changing resolutions through DVD player set up it is better not to have a disk playing in the DVD player as that causes errors.
Finally, for the features and price this is a good buy if you have a lot of Div-X, VCD, DVD-RW discs and copies of original DVDs as this player plays them all. However, don't expect this player to be a life-long purchase and cross your fingers and hope you get a good piece when you buy one. In fact, I recommend buying it from a store close to you so that the return is easier.
11/06/06 Update: The player has worked just fine up till now but I hardly use it more than once a week.
11/16/08: This player is still working fine and plays all DVDs and home made movies without any problem. You can also make it region free if you like just Google it. So I stand by my rating.
Buy Philips DVP5960 DVD Player with HDMI, 1080i Upscaling, DivX Ultra, USB direct Now
I bought this after being incredibly satisfied with its pseudo-predecessor, the Philips DVP642 DVD Player. The reasons I loved that player was that it played just about anything I threw at it. I could take DVD's I bought and convert them to DIVX or XVID and play 6 movies, or twenty TV shows on a single disc. It would also happily play all of my mp3's and jpgs I burned to data DVD's and CD's. I don't use the picture functionality much, but it makes for a great slideshow/screensaver.Anyway, the DVP5960 has all of that functionality and more. Here are the top three reasons I recommend this DVD player and the reason I gave it 5 out of 5 stars:
#1: like it's predecessor, the DVP5960 is cheap. It makes a great birthday, Christmas or wedding present. I've probably bought 6 or 7 of the DVP642's to give away, and will likely do the same for the DVP5960 over the next couple of years.
#2: this sucker plays just about anything you throw at it. The DVP5960 will happily trudge through scratched or non-standard DVD's that other DVD players would scoff at. (Especially the DRM-happy Sony players)
It plays NTSC, PAL, Burned DVD's and CD's, and even burned *DATA* DVD's and CD's which can hold thousands of pictures, hundreds of mp3s, 15-25 television shows or 4-8 movies per DVD (compressed, like in divx or xvid formats.) There is a slew of software which will convert your legally-bought DVD's to these compressed DIVX formats, as well as all kinds of free content you can download off the internet.
I'ts pretty cool to throw in a DVD and watch an entire season of your favorite show without changing the disc. Also, I found that the DVP642 occasionally had problems rendering certain .avi's. The DVP5960 seems to have improved it's codecs and consequently, every video I used to have a problem with plays beautifully on the DVP5960.
#3: This is the coolest feature to me: The USB port. The product literature suggests the USB port is there to hook up mp3 players and cameras, and play mp3's or display pictures from them. As a test, I threw a few .avi video files on a 2 gig USB stick and plugged it in. I was delighted to see the DVP5960 pick up the videos on the stick with absolutely no problems. In fact, it loaded and played them much faster than it read my DVD's.
Next, I took a little external 80 gigabyte hard drive I had, loaded it up with mp3's, jpg's, mpg's and avi files (divx, xvid, etc) and enthusiastically plugged it in. After a few seconds trying to recognize the drive, it displayed "Disk Type Unsupported" on the screen. Doh!
Demoralized, I wondered why the USB stick worked and the external drive did not. The next day I realized the main difference between my external drive and the USB memory stick was the file structure. USB sticks generally default to either the FAT or FAT32 file system. However, Windows XP likes to format drives to NTFS, a proprietary Microsoft file system. In fact, XP will not allow you to format a drive to FAT or FAT32 through it's GUI. It does provide instructions to do so via the command line (start-->run-->'cmd'), but after four hours of formatting my drive to FAT32, it failed. I did some research and found out that although a common misconception is that FAT32 can only format a disk up to 32 gigabytes or so, it can actually support drives up to 2 terrabytes. (2000 gigabytes.)
Do a search for a free program called "fat32format.exe" and run it from the command line on your external USB hard drive. It formatted my 80 gig drive it in about 30 seconds.
After doing this, I loaded up the drive again with mp3's, jpg's and several dozen movies and television shows, crossed my fingers and plugged it into the DVP5960.
I clicked the USB button, waited a few seconds while it tried to recognize the drive, and much to my delight, displayed the full contents of my 80 gig external drive! As I type this, my DVP5960 has been reading videos off that external drive for about 12 hours now. This alone makes this DVD player worth it to me.
As others have said, these drives do seem to break down after a period of heavy use. With the DVP642, I think I heard of two burning out, each running for about two years before they gave out. If you make sure they don't get to hot (provide ventilation) I think you can limit this. But frankly, I am more than willing to pay $70.00 every two years for the broad compatibility and USB functionality this drive provides. And who knows, maybe this new model will have a longer shelf life. Time will tell.
If you're looking for a drive that will run just about anything you throw at it, this is the drive for you. I have messed with many, many DVD drives, and I simply cannot recommend this drive enough.USB:
The primary reason I bought this DVD player was because of its ability to play off USB devices. The specs indicate it will read jpegs, MP3s, and WMAs off a USB flash drive. It will also read off a FAT32-formatted external hard drive as long as it is externally powered and it will also play divx/xvid from USB. I'm using a 250GB Seagate HDD inside a (warranty-voided) Maxtor enclosure. The divx/xvid playback works perfectly and no stuttering. The interface for the USB is pretty bad though. It will only give you 8 characters of the filename and only 4 filenames at a time.
DVD Playback:
No issues, but I wouldn't recommend this player if your only using this for DVD Playback. One should take advantage of the divx/xvid and USB capabilities, otherwise, why buy this? Some people have complained about lack of DTS decoding, but the vast majority of the public are fine w/Dolby Digital. It's a $80 machine after all. Like many DVD players, there's a region free hack (google it!) I don't have a very good TV and can only use composite, so I can't comment on the upscaling.
Remote Control:
I need to point the remote directly at the player to get it to work. The buttons you use the most (up,down,left,right,enter) are near the top where your thumb should land. Left/Right double as RW/FF when applicable and run at 2/4/8/16/32x which works on divx/xvid as well as dvd. The "enter" button is a huge 0.5inch diameter circle. Play/Pause/Stop/Next/Back are right underneath and also "thumb accessible". Would have liked a backlight though. There is no volume amplifier, so you will need at least 2-3 remotes (TV/DVD Player/Sound System). Overall, I'm happy with it.
Overall Impressions:
You get alot for $80. It is a steal if you're using the USB to play divx/xvid, something that only a fraction of DVD players can do. And those that do are generally international players. Bad USB interface though. No complaints w/DVD player. Not much to say about it other than you can do a region-free hack. Even though the remote has bad response, I like the fact that all the commonly used buttons are all around the thumb area and the buttons I use the most are bigger.
Want Philips DVP5960 DVD Player with HDMI, 1080i Upscaling, DivX Ultra, USB direct Discount?
I love my Philips 642 (which I use with the bedroom TV) and since my Zenith player in the living room was giving me trouble I thought I'd try this model. Sadly, it's gonna go back -GOOD POINTS
Great picture quality. I haven't tried the upscale feature. My HD set only has DVI and I don't feel like buying an adapter, especially since (supposedly) the HDMI output on the player cuts off the coax digital audio output if you use it. Groovy if you've got a HDMI amp you can snake it to, I don't.
Hackable. Simple to turn off the region code and play PAL discs, and the PAL conversion is the best I've seen, even better than the 642. Very nice if you have import discs.
MP3 playback supports DVD mp3 discs, and sounds GREAT. The menu is a bit crude (like almost every DVD player is when it comes to mp3) but better than most. It at least displays the bitrate and total files in folder. It also allows you (via the "display" button) to select single, shuffle, folder and repeat folder options. That is an EXTREMELY nice option, since most of the time I only want to hear one folder (album) and damn near no other player I've come across features this.
I haven't messed much with the DivX playback, but the little I did worked fine.
CONS
Audio occasionally mutes on my burned DVD-Rs and RWs. BIG drag. This may just be a defect with this particular machine, and I'll try another before giving up on this model. Otherwise it doesn't seem to have any problems reading them.
Biggest complaint NO DTS OUTPUT. WTF?? Even the cheapest chinese throwaway players offer this. I don't have a HUGE collection of discs with DTS, but enough to make this a BIG drawback (since I happen to prefer DTS when available). Don't know what they were thinking with that one.
Oh, and the remote is pretty lame . . . . not as bad as the 642 but still cheap and awkward.
If the above drawbacks aren't dealbreakers I'd say go for it. For an under $100 player it's got a lot of nice qualities.
DVD Player with Video Upscaling up to 1080i
HDMI DivX
Picture/Display
*Aspect ratio: 4:3, 16:9
*D/A converter: 12 bit, 108 MHz
*Picture enhancement: High Def (720p, 1080i), Progressive Scan, Smart Picture, Video upsampling, Video upscaling
Sound
*D/A converter: 24 bit, 192 kHz
*Signal to noise ratio: 90
*Distortion and Noise (1kHz): 65 dB
*Crosstalk (1kHz): 70 dB
*Dynamic Range (1kHz): 80 dB
*Sound System: Dolby Digital
*Frequency response: 30-20000 Hz
Video Playback
*Playback Media: CD, CD-R/CD-RW, Video CD/SVCD, DVD, DivX, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW
*Compression formats: MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX 3.11, DivX 4.x, DivX 5.x, DivX 6.0, DivX Ultra
*Video disc playback system: NTSC, PAL
Audio Playback
*Playback Media: CD, MP3-CD, MP3-DVD, CD-R/RW, WMA-CD
*Compression format: Dolby Digital, MP3, PCM, WMA
*MP3 bit rates: 32 256 kbps
Still Picture Playback
*Playback Media: DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD-R/RW, Picture CD, Kodak Picture CD
*Picture compression format: JPEG
*Picture enhancement: Flip photos, Rotate, Zoom, Slideshow with MP3 playback, High Definition Resolution
Multimedia Applications
*Multimedia connections: USB memory class device
*Playback Formats: DivX, MP3, JPEG Still pictures
Connectivity
*Rear Connections: Analog audio Left/Right out, Composite video (CVBS) output, HDMI output, Digital coaxial out, ComponentVideo out Progressive
Convenience
*Child Protection: Parental Control, Child Lock
*On-Screen Display languages: English, Mexican Spanish, Canadian French
Accessories
*Included Accessories: 2 x AAA Batteries, Audio/Video cable, Quick start guide, Remote Control, World Wide Warranty leaflet, User Manual, Product Registration Card
Dimensions
*Set dimensions (W x H x D): 435 x 37 x 235 mm
*Packaging dimensions (W x H x D): 490 x 82 x 320 mm
Power
*Power supply: 120V, 60Hz
*Power consumption: < 10 W
*Standby power consumption: < 0.8 W
*
HDMI for simple AV connection
HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. It is a direct digital connection that can carry digital HD video as well as digital multichannel audio. By eliminating the conversion to analog signals it delivers perfect picture and sound quality, completely free from noise. HDMI is fully backward-compatible with (Digital Video Interface) DVI.
Video Upscaling up to 1080i
With Video Upscaling you can increase the resolution of SD (Standard Definition) video signals that DVD uses to HD (High Definition) so you'll be able to see more details thanks to a sharper, more true-to-life picture.The resulting HD video output signal can be fed to an HD display through HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).
High definition JPEG playback
With High Resolution JPEG playback, you can show up to 2 Megapixel resolution on your Flat TV (FTV). Now you can view your digital pictures in their true resolution, without loss of quality or details.
Progressive Scan
Progressive Scan doubles the vertical resolution of the image resulting in a noticeably sharper picture. Instead of sending a field comprising the odd lines to the screen first, followed by the field with the even lines, both fields are written at one time. A full image is created instantaneously, using the maximum resolution. At such a speed, your eye perceives a sharper picture with no line structure.
Multi-format Movies with DivX
Multi-format playability allows you to play most disc formats for maximum disc compatibility and viewing pleasure.
DivX Ultra certified
DivX Ultra combines DivX playback with great features like integrated subtitles, multiple audio languages, multiple tracks and menus into one convenient file format.
Music: Windows Media(tm) Audio
Multi-format playability allows you to play most disc formats for maximum disc compatibility and listening pleasure.
Picture CD with MP3 Playback
Picture CD is a CD-R or CD-RW disc on which you can store your MP3 and digital pictures. When inserting a Picture CD in the DVD player, a screen menu will pop up, showing your JPEG's and/or MP3 files on the disc. Just select the music and pictures files you wish to enjoy and press play or OK. You can watch your pictures on TV with your music playing simultaneously.
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